Best Austin Neighborhoods: Clarksville

No. 14 on our list is rich with history

By Robyn Ross

Published: July 5, 2017

Photo courtesy Caffe Medici

Clarksville is known for its leafy streets, walkability, and proximity to downtown. Yet to describe it only in terms of amenities would be to overlook the community’s history, a legacy that its longtime residents have fought fiercely to preserve.

The neighborhood was built on land that originally held the slave quarters for Gov. Elisha Pease’s mansion, which still stands several blocks north. After the Civil War, Pease sold or granted parcels of the land to some of his former slaves. Another former slave, Charles Clark, the community’s namesake, bought two acres and sold portions to other freedmen. Residents built houses and the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church, but the city’s notorious 1928 master plan forced residents of color into East Austin by denying them city services in other parts of town. As recently as the 1970s, the streets of Clarksville were unpaved. The construction of Mopac Expressway that same decade destroyed a third of the original neighborhood, which once stretched farther west.

The city also planned to build a crosstown expressway that would have decimated the rest of Clarksville, but residents organized and defeated the plan. In 1978 they formed the Clarksville Community Development Corporation, led by residents including Pauline Brown, for whom Clarksville’s community center is named, and Mary Frances Freeman Baylor, the park’s namesake. As developers discovered Clarksville—now with paved streets and proper drainage—prices began to rise, and many of the African-American residents were forced to move. The CCDC began acquiring and building affordable properties it could rent to residents who would otherwise be displaced, or other families who needed an affordable place to live.

The program helps weed out potential Clarksville residents who would find living next to affordable housing distasteful, says Malcolm Greenstein, a founding member of the CCDC, who serves on its board today. “You want people living in Clarksville who are dedicated to preserving Clarksville—its history, its architecture, its community feel,” he says

While Austinites (and especially real estate agents) may apply the moniker “Clarksville” to a larger portion of Old West Austin, the historic Clarksville encompasses only the area bounded by Mopac, West Lynn Street, Waterston Avenue, and West 10th Street. Longtime residents are all too aware of the irony of “Clarksville” connoting an exclusive address when the neighborhood was for decades intentionally neglected by the city.

Like many Central Austin neighborhoods, Clarksville—which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places—struggles to maintain its character amid the city’s growth. Members of the CCDC fight proposals to demolish existing structures and replace them with homes that don’t fit the character or scale of the district. “In some ways we’re trying to push against the inevitable,” Greenstein says, “but we’re doing what we can to link arms and protect what’s here.”

In addition to its affordable housing program, the CCDC has restored the Hezikiah Haskell House, a 19th-century home built by a former slave, and turned it into a museum and meeting space. It runs a community garden and throws an annual ice cream social and Halloween haunted house. All these efforts make Clarksville more than just a historic place, Greenstein says: They make it a community.